Hungary eyes crisis declaration as migrant pressure grows

Hungary may declare a national crisis due to ever-greater numbers of migrants arriving in the country, officials said yesterday, as trains heading west into Austria were suspended due to massive overcrowding by asylum seekers.

The latest breakdown in Europe's border and transport infrastructure came as Hungarian soldiers started exercises to prepare for a possible role in securing the frontier with Serbia, where prisoners are now building a steel security fence.

As Hungary accelerated construction of the 4m-high fence, Macedonia said it may build a similar barrier to stop migrants crossing from Greece, as they trek from Turkey, through the Balkans and Hungary, towards western Europe.

At a meeting next Tuesday, Hungary’s government will discuss a proposal from the interior ministry to declare a “state of crisis due to mass migration”, János Lázár, chief of staff to prime minister Viktor Orbán, said yesterday.

Bolster security

Officials say more than 170,000 migrants have entered Hungary this year, and the country registered a one-day record of 3,321 new arrivals on Wednesday.

Hungarian soldiers trained near the Serbian border yesterday, in expectation of receiving clearance later this month to bolster police security in the frontier zone.

Serbian television reported yesterday that some 5,000 migrants had reached the country’s border with Hungary in the previous 24 hours, as the flow of people through the region again surges due to Greece’s efforts to register and move them on more quickly.

Defying criticism from the European Union, Hungary has strung razor wire along its 175km border with Serbia and now has prison work gangs racing to erect a steel fence along the frontier well ahead of an earlier October 31st deadline.

The razor-wire fence has failed to slow the arrival of migrants, the vast majority of whom leave Hungary as quickly as possible, whether they have registered as asylum seekers or not.

Most head for Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavian states where they expect to have the best prospects and warmest welcome.

Safe places

Hungary insists it is trying to protect the borders of the EU’s Schengen Area – through which people can in theory travel without showing their passport – and wants Balkan states to stop migrants heading north through their territory. These countries are perfectly safe places for refugees fleeing war to stay in, Hungary says.

Officials in Serbia have said it will start building a new reception centre for migrants next week, with the help of EU funding, while Macedonia is considering erecting a fence on its border with Greece.

Macedonian foreign minister Nikola Poposki said the country would also need "some kind of a physical defence" on the border, according to Hungarian news magazine Figyelo.

“But if we take seriously what Europe is asking us to do, we will need that, too. Either soldiers or a fence or a combination of the two,” Mr Poposki said.

Austria’s railway operator halted train services crossing the border from Hungary yesterday due to “massive overloading” a company spokesman said.

“Ever more people are arriving daily. It far exceeds our capacity,” he said.